Summary

On colours and breeding of rabbits.

Summary

Sends dirt residue of chalk samples for David Forbes to examine.

Summary

AE, philosophy professor, is disposed to accept natural selection, but argues that it lacks direction. Suggests that direction would be given if one assumed the appearance of multiple advantageous traits in a single individual. Cites Herbert Spencer, Rudolf Virchow, Claude Bernard, and Carl Vogt.

Summary

Thanks CD for Origin, 6th ed.

Has declined chair at Strasbourg.

Describes research on calcareous sponges.

Criticises Pangenesis.

Summary

Sends information on composition of chalk at Shoreham and Folkestone.

Summary

Response to 6th ed. of Origin. CD’s answer to Mivart on initial stages of modifications is complete; the "eye and ear objection" is not handled so satisfactorily.

Summary

Thanks for new [6th] edition of Origin.

Is working on Echini.

The more material he gets the less easy it is to diagnose a genus or species. Has little doubt that "classification is nothing but the most arbitrary convenient tool, depending upon the material at our command at a special time".

Summary

A. S. Packard would like to visit CD to pay his respects.

Summary

JM arranges to pay CD for the latest issue of Descent.

Summary

Wishes to use some of Fritz Müller’s observations in his paper on mimicry.

CD’s reply and Huxley’s article ["Mr Darwin’s critics", Contemp. Rev. 18 (1871): 443–76] have answered all of Mivart’s objections to natural selection as applied to man.

Summary

Has just finished his work [? The martyrdom of man (1872)]. The new points are: (1) Negroes have whiskers; (2) their music is sometimes agreeable; (3) the Kaffirs are Negroes.

Summary

Plans for visit to CD.

Summary

On how various human emigrations have supported the work of natural selection.

Defends the view that soil and air account for taller stature of westerners in U. S.

Summary

CD insists too strongly, in Descent, on man’s origin from a simian ancestor, rather than some other primate.

Summary

Will see CD tomorrow.

Summary

Describes habits of worms.

Discusses Leersia experiments.

Summary

A. G. Butler has named the specimens sent by CD with Fritz Müller’s letter.

Sends several facts relating to sexual selection, mimicry, and hybrids.

Discusses the possibility that mimicked and mimicking forms have descended from originally allied forms and have diverged in structure but not in appearance.

Summary

CD is urged to increase to 20 his shares in the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Co. Ltd. Many prominent people have done so.

Summary

Endorses revised statement about Butler’s odd hereditary habit;

describes a séance at William Crookes’s.

Summary

Sends two vines for CD’s experiments, with instructions for grafting.

Mentions a hybrid plum–peach.